Chapter Text
May should mean flowers and light breezes, but for some reason in South Park, and especially Teagrity Farms, there is no transition. It’s hot. The only condition of the air is blanket–like even with the fan buzzing in the corner of the bedroom.
Really not a great environment for Kyle’s hair.
He’s sitting on Stan’s bed, sweating in his pajamas with his legs outstretched.
Stan is resting his head on his lap, feet sticking up and out the open window that the bed's pressed up against, probably inviting in a million moths and stinging flies. He takes one of Kyle’s exhausted curls between two of his fingers and pulls it taut. “Dude,” He says, letting it bounce back. “You know how long your hair would be if we straightened it?”
“No.” He grins and shuts down the idea. “We’re not doing that.”
“My Mom has a straightening iron in the bathroom. If it looks like shit you can just shower after and — poof! — Back to normal.”
“If normal means fried.”
“Yeah, to match your brains,” Stan says.
Kyle flicks his forehead. “Funny.”
“I am funny.”
“Only not funny as in humorous.”
“Funny.”
He shrugs. “I live to entertain.”
“Psh,” Stan lets his eyes flutter closed lazily.
Something’s a little off. For the past few weeks, Kyle’s been feeling a resurgence of aches and inspirations for Stan that he can’t quite name. He thought he'd left them behind in the fourth grade but apparently not.
It’s a subtle warmth in his stomach that occasionally flutters uncomfortably. It does now, at least, as he stares down at his friend's sleepy grin.
“Hey, maybe we should go to bed.” He says. “You look tired.”
“I am.” Stan drums his fingers over his stomach. “Dinner tires me out.”
“I find that hard to believe with your Mom’s cooking.”
“Yeah, maybe ‘cause your spice tolerance is zero. Our country's cuisine isn't even that hot.” Stan sits up and laughs. He pulls Kyle’s head to his chest and rocks back and forth performatively. “Poor little guy, not built for Turkish food.”
Kyle drags them both down onto the pillow. “Oh shut up. I like it.”
His friend gives him a look.
“Seriously! I do.” He says. “At least I get to eat, unlike when your dad cooks.”
Stan wraps an arm around Kyle’s waist. He’s been getting more clingy lately, which might be part of the reason these feelings decided to reemerge. “He just doesn’t get the concept of kosher foods. Give him a few more years.”
“A few more years? We’ll be in college in a few more years.” Kyle chuffs. “And it wouldn’t hurt him to resist the urge to smear every piece of meat in a pound of butter.”
“I actually think it would kill him. Like those ocean fish drowning in fresh water, he’s built up too much of a resistance to the cholesterol.” Stan laughs at his own joke and it makes Kyle's heart do a weird sort of semaphore.
“Devastating. Still, we’re not saving any of his recipes once we’re roommates.”
“Dude you’re still on that?" He scrunches up his nose in an expression that says 'I'm flattered, but you're an idiot' which is a phrase the two of them are always finding new ways to express. "There’s no way I’ll get into a college half as good as you; you’re like a certified genius. Plus even if you weren’t, there are still basketball scholarships.”
“I’m not that good. And I’m definitely not a certified genius. Don’t worry.”
“I'm not worrying." He offers a melancholy smile. "I'll just miss you, dude. A lot."
"Sounds gay." Kyle jokes. It's really less of a joke and more of an involuntary vocal spasm at this point. He's lived through middle school and a good portion of high school so it's sort of become of an unsentimental way of saying 'Me too.'
Still, Stan's smile falters as he feigns a little chuckle. "Funny." He untangles his grasp and goes to turn off the lights. "Only not funny as in humorous."
───※ ·❆· ※───
Stan has an arm wrapped around his waist again, his face is about two inches away, he’s got a leg wedged between Kyle’s thighs and little murmuring sounds keep seeping from his lips.
Right now, he couldn’t care less about what awkward fate lies in store for the morning because he’s asleep.
Kyle is not. He’s wide awake. This is the fourth sleepover where he’s woken up at some point in the night to find his friend snuggling him. He almost waits for it, anticipates it, and drinks up the little movements that eventually end in the intertwining of their bodies. And once that happens, how is he supposed to tear his gaze away? His friend is adorable.
Stan slips closer, bangs brushing against his forehead, and mumbles something incoherent. Although, the last word sounds a lot like Kyle.
Something about that thrills and horrifies him.
What if it’s a nightmare? What if he’s being an asshole and Stan wakes up mad at him? Kyle lies there, itching the back of his neck as he considers the possibilities. It shouldn’t even matter. They’re on each other's waking minds every day, what’s the difference now? He’s had all sorts of weird and wonderful dreams about Stan before. It’s fine, it’s normal.
And then it happens again. Stan quivers a little, and his grip tightens. “Kyle.” It seems like a nightmare, his hair is damp with sweat.
Kyle brushes his fingers through it. “It’s okay.” He whispers. "I’m here.”
Does this ever work? Can people actually hear through their dreams?
Stan makes a little noise that could be taken as either an improvement or a regression in his mood and curls forward.
Their lips brush.
Kyle’s pretty sure a lightning bolt would affect him less than this. The bright flash of heat that shocks him back into reality, maybe the second it lulls him irreversibly back out. It’s like a near-death experience, like his life is about to flash before his eyes.
Stan just settled his mouth against his and left it there, lips parted, whispering an unintelligible dreamland sentence.
He tilts his head half an inch back, a barely perceivable motion, and it’s over. The feeling is not. It won't budge. For a long time. He's too worried to move any more, just in case it wakes up Stan and he feels the last tracer particle of the kiss still lingering in his lips.
That was totally gay, wasn’t it? Like actually gay.
Kyle knew about homosexuality, obviously, as an idea, without actually having connected it to a human emotion, definitely not one in his own personal collection.
It just never comes up. He talks to gay people all the time, Craig and Tweek are gay and they’re his friends. But he’d always sort of thought of it as more of a hobby, a lifestyle. Just like his parents; they’re just in a relationship, and sure there had to be some sort of driving force that pushed them there, but he’d never considered it or really wanted to, for that matter.
Oy vey.
That packages his thoughts up nicely. A cliche little phrase that also usually seems more like part of his parents' lifestyle than a real phenomenon.
Kyle can't stay in bed after having his sky suddenly light with the white-hot lighting of sort–of–not–really kissing his best friend. Shit. He savors the last moments of the warm sheets before slipping as carefully as possible and creeping out of the room.
The stairs creak hungry and unsteady with each step. He holds his breath, pretty sure the legions of mice that call that underdark home are at least a little annoyed with him for this.
Downstairs the couch is deep set and made of soft, worn leather.
Kyle slumps down and rubs his eyes. He feels weird, a low voltage is still prickling over his skin through the conducting medium of his sweat.
Is this what a heart attack feels like?
He lies curled up and hugs himself, wondering if it would be more embarrassing for him or Stan if he dropped dead right now. It softens after a few minutes, but every time he thinks about his friend the feeling spikes back up again.
Okay.
That... situation was just a little shocking, that’s all. Nobody else even knows about this. Kyle reassures himself. This feeling will go away in the morning. Everything will be fine.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Everything is not fine.
It doesn’t fade in the morning, or the next day, or at all.
When he considers the person he was in fourth grade, which frankly he tries to do as little as possible, he tends to see the short–tempered, persecuted, Space:1999-watching kid who tried to fix every problem he'd gotten into. But surprisingly he remembers just ignoring his feelings for Stan, and that seemed to work. So that's what he's doing now.
The only problem with this strategy is that, as a fourth grader, he didn't have a problem with figuring out what to think about while jerking off, or anything on that subject actually.
And what's he supposed to do now? Imagine nothing? Is that even possible?
Kyle tries not to picture Stan. Really, with all his heart.
He's always watching himself, listening to himself, audience and judge, checking his behavior against that of the mental list of 'good behaviors' that he has been busy compiling other the course of his life— He's starting to feel prude, never serious, never forgiving, never willing to commit to anything that might entangle him in seriousness or the need to forgive. As soon as his fantasies light with Stan's inevitable flame, he stops. Completely. And reads a book — strategically not romance — until he passes out.
It's very much a distraction against the surreal potential of his imagination, the masturbatory jar of Vaseline on his dresser, and most importantly Stan’s texts over when they’ll hang out next.
It's sort of taking a toll, in its own embarrassing way. Can someone die from not masturbating? Is that a thing?
This, too, he tries and fails to ignore.
One day at lunch, Stan ends some rambling speech with that adorable laugh of his. "Isn't that awesome?"
Kyle— well, Kyle doesn't know what happens. He had been eating his sandwich, there was some random thought in his head, He glances up, his face must look blank, hearing nothing new, nothing remarkable, just thinking that lame-ass sandwich thought. You needed something?
And for a moment his friend's eyes go wide with hurt and doubt.
What a dick!
“Oh, yeah, awesome,” Kyle says. But he knows it's too late
"Dude." Stan frowns. "Are you okay?"
He chews his sandwich slowly, considering the question. "I dunno, just a bit stressed."
"It's just his sandy vagina." Carman offers.
Both of them ignore it.
Stan fiddles with his hat. "A bit?"
"Well, you know..."
"Sandy vagina." He says again, and is dismissed again.
"Yeah, because a bit is, like, not that much." Stan teases and rubs circles into his back comfortingly, which Kyle is pretty sure only makes him tenser. "We haven't hung out for a while."
Kyle rubs the bridge of his nose. "Haven't we? I thought we did something last week."
It's actually been three weeks two days and a handful of hours, but who's counting?
"No, it's been longer than that. I miss you, dude, a lot."
He holds back a 'sounds gay,' and turns his body to face him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, you're like my only hobby." Stan wraps his arms around Kyle's neck and leans in.
For a second he thinks they're about to kiss, right in the cafeteria, with the whole school around them. But Stan just presses their foreheads together in the way he always does when trying to telepathically transfer his thoughts.
It feels good. Ridiculous. But good. Kyle smiles and closes his eyes.
"Gay." Cartman snorts like he does every time they do this. Now he isn't ignored, at least not by Kyle.
His eyes snap back open and immediately meet Stan's; they're like two endless wells, wide and bright like they belong to a nocturnal animal that can see right through him. "hah," He coughs and lets go. "Shut the fuck up, Fatass."
"I'm just saying what I see Kahl."
Kyle feels his cheeks heat up with embarrassment and his heart burn cold with guilt. It feels like he's been caught in the act. Does everyone know? Does Stan know? He looks over.
Stan doesn't look anything but mildly annoyed at Cartman for interrupting.
Kyle takes a deep breath and turns back to his sandwich. Mind reeling.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Kyle talks to himself, reassures himself, tries to work his way into some sort of solution. He lies in bed listing off the reasons why he shouldn't like Stan, writes every romantic thought he can manage about the prettiest girls in his school, and flips through old pictures in his parents' old photo album, failing to convince himself that since he's known his friend so long, there's something weird and quasi─incestuous about it.
It turns out he's pretty shit at giving himself advice. So he goes to the library to ask the next closest thing.
Wendy’s there, as she always is, with her legs dangling off the side of the seat, while Bebe braids her hair behind her. She’s eating her lunch and reading a slow book on political theory.
“Hey, uh, Dee?” Kyle walks up to her and fiddles with his coat zipper. “This might sound weird and forward, but what should I do if I'm trying to prevent a crush on someone.”
“Mm, Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. You, for example.”
Wendy looks up from her book with an expression that works wonders in crushing his confidence. “What?” She asks. A carrot slice stops just short of the edge of her mouth, smearing a little bit of hummus on her lower lip.
Kyle says nothing, in fact, he tries with mute concentration to reel the question back out of existence.
It doesn’t do much good. She must be replaying it in her mind and deciding that she’d heard him correctly because her expression deepens. “I thought you were gay.”
He almost bites back a harsh, no you’re gay, before realizing that he can’t actually come to any solid conclusion about the spirit of her observation. “I plead the fifth.”
“I wasn’t really waiting for your confirmation, actually, you’ve got some internalized stuff wheeling around in that head.”
"I don’t think that’s fair.”
Wendy bites into her carrot with a ruthless snap. When she's done, she does the same for him. “You stare at boys' asses.”
"Psh, no." Kyle laughs nervously. "Name one boy whose ass I’ve stared at.”
“Tolkien, Craig, Clyde, Pip, Jason,” She continues listing off names with an almost practiced confidence. It makes Kyle wonder if this is maybe not the first time she’s mentioning his tendency.
“No, those don’t— Ugh I— I said one.”
She looks up at him through her heavy eyelids. “Stan.”
Kyle blushes. “Point taken— Okay. Let’s play with that particular hypothetical for a second. How would I protect myself against liking your boyfriend like that.”
“Not boyfriend.” She says. “We’re taking a break because I’m busy with the town hall internship.”
“Cool. cool–cool–cool–cool. That doesn’t answer my question.”
Wendy slides the book onto the table and turns to exchange a knowing glance with Bebe for a second before looking back at him. “Well, why do you think you have a crush on him?”
“I said it was a hypothetical.”
She sighs. “Why hypothetically, might you have a hypothetical crush on him.”
And Kyle can hypothetically rant without being gay, can't he? “I don’t know! It's really bad, like I think it's making me sick, actually, or at least lowering my immunity. It sort of happened, and not without warning, but come on, I could have used a little more. I thought I knew what a crush felt like, but it’s never been like this.” He says. “Hypothetically.”
Wendy itches the side of her nose with her thumb and furrows her eyebrows. “Like this? What’s this? Something obsessive, painful, racy?”
“Sort of all of those.”
“And none of your old crushes felt like that.”
Kyle looks away in the tritest high–school, got–to–play–it–cool panic imaginable. This is so embarrassing. Wendy's not a therapist, she doesn't even really know him that much. “Uh, no.”
“Then yeah, I don’t know what to say, you’ve probably never had a real crush before.” She says.
He coughs. “You’re joking Wendy. That’s impossible. I’ve had crushes.”
“You’d think so,”
“So you’re just saying I like him, completely frank, no argument.”
Wendy shrugs. Ironically, she always shrugs when she's confident in her answers. Her gravitation towards correctness is one thing Kyle's always liked about her, probably the main reason he trusted her so much to date his idiot. Stan needs someone who's sure of themselves to keep him out of too much trouble. “I know you’d do the same for me.”
“But, I mean come on. it's different."
"How?" Wendy asks even though he knows she knows how.
You're a girl. You're not his Super Best Friend.
"Because it just is. This is a shit diagnosis."
“Fine, whatever, what do I know? It could just be sexual tension.”
An alternative? Kyle blinks and cocks his head at an awkward angle. "Hm?"
"Sexual tension, since you two are always around each other." Wendy nods to emphasize the words. “It happened to me back in elementary school when I teamed up with Cartman. I had to kiss him to make it go away.”
“Kiss him?”
“It was sort of gross.”
“Do I have to kiss Stan?” Kyle asks, feeling a little light–headed at the thought. “Like on the lips?”
“I don’t know, I’m saying it could help.”
Kyle wonders if she's just saying that as some sort of excuse; a last-minute idea to give him the confidence to actually make a move. After all, Wendy's motivation isn't compassion or altruism, but something that entails both of those things ── no–nonsense impatience. He'd consider himself the same way. “Immediately?”
Wendy flips the finished braid over her shoulder to look at it. Perfect. Bebe is great with hair. “Yeah.” She says. “Unless it is a crush, which, sorry but I wouldn't be surprised.”
A crush. He coughs up a nervous laugh. A crush on Stan. "No. No. Don't worry. It's not."